Route 5 Study Could Start This Week

Wallingford Wary Of Growth

WALLINGFORD — Route 5 in Wallingford is already too congested for some people to travel regularly.

But in the next few months, with a Wal-Mart and Super Kmart under construction and more large retailers looking at the town, the face of the state road will be changing rapidly.

In response to the development, the town is undertaking a major land-use and traffic study of the highway to help it plan the best future for the under-developed and undeveloped parcels along the highway.

Along the northern stretch of Route 5 -- from North Street to the Meriden line -- more than 100 acres, or about 25 percent of the parcels, are potential sites for more large businesses, and before too many more proposals come in, the town wants to know how much more Route 5 can handle.

The firms of Milone & MacBroom Inc. of Cheshire and Harrall-Michalowski Associates Inc. of Hamden will be teaming up for a four-month assessment of Route 5.

The study is expected to begin this week, when the town signs a contract for the $43,000 project, which may lead to some zoning changes.

Town Planner Linda Bush said she was surprised at the sudden and intense interest of large retail chains in clustering along Route 5, especially given the number of department stores and existing stores on the highway.

Neck and neck, the proposals for the Super Kmart and Wal-Mart went through the approval process and kept the planning and zoning department busy much of the fall and winter. They both won approval just weeks apart this winter.

And the stores' competition continues, with construction at their sites almost in sync. The new Super Kmart Center will be on the site of the former Revere Aerospace factory; it will be a 170,000-square-foot store that is open 24 hours a day, offering a department store, a full grocery store, restaurant and more under one roof.

The 120,000-square-foot Wal-Mart will be 1 mile north on Route 5, at Neal Road across from Healthworks.

Both stores are expected to open sometime after the new year, Bush said.

``In the past 10 years, there had been 250,000 square feet of commercial space built on Route 5, and then in one month . . . we approved 290,000 square feet,'' Bush said.

The two developments had many residents complaining that there already is too much traffic in town, that there are enough stores and that the character of the town is going to be lost.

For a time after the two superstores were approved, the planning and zoning commission considered putting a building moratorium in place until the Route 5 study could be carried out. Ultimately, the commission decided against a moratorium.

Bush said the consultants will consider a building moratorium, and the commission may be asked to reconsider the issue if the firms believe it would be beneficial to their work.

As the moratorium was being considered, a third -- and even larger -- retail proposal was received for the former Eyelet property, which is just south of the Super Kmart site. That plan called for a more-than-280,000-square-foot retail shopping center.

The proposal for the Eyelet property, which was submitted in a rush just before the commission was to vote on the building moratorium, was incomplete. It was withdrawn for revisions after the commission struck down the moratorium. It is expected to be resubmitted soon, Bush said.

The Super Kmart and Wal-Mart are being required to make major roadway improvements to help improve traffic generated from their stores, and those steps will help Route 5 despite the added traffic, Bush said. Wal-Mart already has begun its road-improvement work, and Kmart is expected to begin soon, she said.

The police department's traffic maintenance officer, Rick Doll, said he hopes the Route 5 study will give the town the ``working tools to make the proper zoning-regulation changes so we don't have negative impacts primarily on the collector roads throughout the area.''

``The premise is that the northern end of Route 5 is going to be the major retail area, and we have to work from there to see what changes have to be made,'' Doll said. ``We're looking at Route 5 from a traffic-access-management standpoint to see how we can move traffic out there now with what we have and what we are expecting to have in the future.''

``The question, and one of the consultant's major tasks, is to determine how much more traffic that uniform, four-lane highway can handle,'' Doll said. ``If they take it from the build-out scenario, and they say, `OK, we know we have X amount of acres available for retail development,' the roadway could be unable to deal with it unless we make Route 5 an eight-lane highway. Now, the question is `Does Wallingford want eight lanes on Route 5?' ''

Bush said the tendency with sudden, major retail development is that it also attracts more, smaller retail stores and more restaurants to serve shoppers. The town must plan its zoning and road needs now, she said.

Still, a dose of historical perspective with Route 5 traffic is interesting.